How to move Backup from TC to external HD

Thank you for the link. That page is rather complex, bordering on information overload, but the simple answer appears at the very end of that page (at least in theory, as I've not yet tried it):

...drag the Backups.backupdb folder from the disk image to the top level of the new volume.

Beside that, the only other 3 things are:

1) Disk Utility says my TC sparsebundle is Apple Partition Map (APM), not GUID, which seems to indicate I need to format my new 2TB external HD as APM too.

2) Clicking on "Time Machine Backups" inside that sparsebundle in Disk Utility shows it to be formatted Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled), which would be what I would need to format the external HD as.

3) And I see that I need to ensure "Ignore ownership on this volume" is NOT checked, for my external HD.

If that is truly all there is to it, then the hardest part is simply waiting for 1TB of data to copy from my TC to my new external HD. (Yes, I could just start fresh, but I like the ability to quickly jump back in time to any of my old backups, without having to dig up an old backup file.)

Thank you for the info. I will report back upon my success or failure.

LaPastenague wrote:

1) Disk Utility says my TC sparsebundle is Apple Partition Map (APM), not GUID, which seems to indicate I need to format my new 2TB external HD as APM too.

No, I don't think so.. it should be formatted Mac OS extended Journaled case sensitive .. the partition scheme should still be GUID.

I've never tried it before, so I must defer to you on what to do. But according to the website that you referred me to it says the following:

Format the new drive/partition, with either the GUID or APMPartition Map Scheme, and the exact same Format as the old backups

Have a look. Open the page and scroll to the very bottom:

http://pondini.org/TM/18.html

Any further thoughts in light of this?

LaPastenague wrote:

As per pondini.. GUID or APM.. but I would definitely use GUID.

I have done it and it has worked fine.. although the permissions issue was still a pain.

Does this mean that you perhaps would not have had any permissions issue if your partition scheme was APM rather than GUID?

I ask this because (1) this is all new to me and I have zero experience upon which to draw, and (2) I Googled APM and GUID and people are saying that unless I intend to boot off the external HD (which I do not), then it doesn't matter at all whether you use APM or GUID. Why then do you advocate GUID?

Thanks for your time.

Sorry for my delayed reply, but I've not had the time to proceed until today.

One quick question...

I have my 2TB FW800 external HD properly formatted and partitioned as per the previous instructions mentioned here. I mounted the TC's Sparse Image and then dragged the "Backups.backupdb" folder to my 2TB external. After authorizing it with my PSW, the Finder presented me with a "Copy" dialog, and for the last 30 minutes it's been counting up slowly. Right now it says "Preparing to copy 950,000 items" and counting. This is taking quite some time. Would it be faster and even safer to use Carbon Copy Cloner to move this folder over, rather than just use a basic Finder copy? (I'm copying 1TB of data from the TC to my iMac's external HD via Gigabit Ethernet.)

Thank you.

Pondini wrote:

I don't know if it will copy a folder to a sparsebundle in that mode.

Actually, I am copying FROM the Sparse Bundle (on my TC, via GigaBit Ethernet) TO the root level of my FW800 1TB External HD directly attached to my iMac.

Your comment above implies that I need to copy TO a new sparsebundle on my external FW800 HD?

Am I doing it wrong?

The copying has at last finished, but I've come up against something and I don't know what to do. Before I talking about that, let me first explain what's taken place since my last post...

Since my last post my iMac has been copying the "Backups.backupdb" non-stop. I decided against using CCC due to performance issues I read about here:

http://help.bombich.com/discussions/questions/16684-ccc-performance-copying-vs-f inder-performance

I didn't think it would take so long to copy 1TB of data, but OSX is slow when it comes to copying lots of tiny files. And lots there are — a full 4.3 million of them. In all, it took almost 48 hours to copy the data from the Sparse Bundle on my TC via Gigabit Ethernet to the FW800 external HD attached to my iMac. (Activity Monitor showed Disk Activity varied wildly but it peaked at about 40MB/s. My iMac is an early 2009, 3.06GHz DuoCore.)

Yes, I know you discourage this kind of copying because of the hassle, but I am somewhat of a digital packrat when it comes to conserving data I don't need to deliberately throw away. Part of my feeling stems from the fact I have some backups as old as 2009 in there. The reason that's so is because I've never used Time Machine as Apple expects us to. I think it's a waste to backup so often throughout the day. So what I do is switch off TM in the System Preferences, then use TimeMachineEditor 2.5.3 to schedule a single backup each day, on weekdays only, just before I get into the office. I also exclude the trash, cache files, video cache files and other items that would eat HD space fast. That's why it's taken so long to back up 1TB of data since late 2009. So again, this is why I didn't want to just throw my SparseBundle away and start clean. Who knows what file I may have deleted in the past but want to get back!

Now here's my problem...

After the "Backups.backupdb" finished copying, I then opened Time Machine in the System Preferences and clicked "Select Disk..." to change from my TC to my iMac's external FW800 drive. It presents me with a sheet that says the following:

Do you want to replace the backup disk "Data" or back up to both disks?

If you use both, Time Machine will take turns backing up to "Data" and "2TB Backup".

Note that "2TB Backup" is my FW800 HD attached to my iMac (the one I copied all that data to). And "Data" refers to my TC.

Three buttons are given:

Cancel

Replace "Data"

Use Both

Clearly, I do NOT want to continue backing up to the TC. So logic dictates that I must click the "Replace 'Data'" button. However, that word "Replace" is scary. I don't want to lose 48 hours of copying work by clicking something I should not. Please advise me what to do at this point.

All I want to do is start backing up exclusively to my external FW800 drive, continuing to save new backups along side my old backup data. Once I verify all is well with that, I intend to delete the sparsebundle from off my TC.

Thank you.

Pondini, thank you for your detailed reply. And I must say that your TM website is simply amazing. It's like a college course on the use of TM!

Here is what I did after reading your last post...

I clicked the "Replace" button and then I saw TM get switched on. Since I am using TimeMachineEditor (TME) to schedule my backups, I immediately switched TM off. I then launched TME, changed the schedule to start the backup one minute later, and then I waited. The backup started on schedule. It took a few minutes "preparing" and then it started copy a few GB of files (I was watching the display in the TM pref pane of System Preferences). The entire time it was backing up, it said "Oldest Backup: None". I guess that's normal when you start backing up to a new drive, even though I had copied over my Backups.backupdb file to it.

After the backup was complete, I verified that only a single Backups.backupdb folder existed on my external FW800 HD. I then entered TM and found that all my old files were still there. I went back to late 2009 and restored a file. No problems whatsoever!

So I am happy to report that everything worked as seamlessly as I hoped. And I wish to thank you and the others here who so kindly pointed me in the right direction.

I now have one last question.

Pondini wrote:

Since it "thins" backups down to one per day after after 24 hours, it saves very little space, either.

Based upon the above statement and what I read on your site, it would appear that using a third party app like TimeMachineEditor to backup only once a day (weekdays) would not trigger the "automatic thinning" process? Does the auto thinning get triggered only after TM is active for 24 hours? Or is it triggered by 24 hours worth of individual backups by third party apps such as TimeMachineEditor?

Furthermore, I see all the caveats to the 3rd party apps you mention on your website, but what then is the advantage of using a 3rd party app? Your information seems to indicate there would be virtually nothing gained by using a 3rd party app instead of TM's default hourly backups. But at the very least could it not be said that use of a 3rd party TM scheduler would be "less obtrusive" than TM's hourly backups, especially on older/slower Macs where you feel the effects of such frequent backups?

Thank you.